WC78 – Editors’ Note

Dan: We return to a subject that seems connected to every other theme we’ve ever done.

Bo: From the start, this was a circle of friends who met in Bob Barzan’s living room to talk to one another

Dan: And the newsletter was Bob’s way of staying in touch and keeping that circle open to others outside that small group.

Bo: I think that’s something Toby Johnson carried on and that we have too. How poignant that as we went to press with this issue we received word of the passing of John Burnside, Harry Hay’s partner. Poignant because our own friendship and association arises out of spending time with the two of them at the Faerie sanctuary in Oregon doing the “Sex Magic” workshops and forming our own “Circle of Loving Companions.”

Dan: Maybe we need to provide a little background for our readers. Harry Hay was considered the father of the Gay Rights movement in the 1950s and later one of the founders of the Radical Faerie “development” (as he liked to call it). In the last decades of his life Harry began an annual series of weeklong workshops with his partner John Burnside.

Bo: God. Do we really need to tell people who Harry Hay is?

Dan: Surprisingly yes. I was struck at talking to a younger gay brother in his 20s who had no idea who Harvey Milk was. We were chatting about the amazing movie trailer online for the Harvey Milk film coming out in November and he looked at me and said “Who’s Harvey Milk?” I was frankly stunned for a second but then had to remind myself that we still come out of erasure and that schools still don’t teach out heroes or our history. None of them do or damn few so as to be negligible. But back to Harry and John. They had this idea of bringing small groups of Gay men together to see if it was possible for Gay men to work through a lot of our baggage and “teach each other” ways of being that were gentle and kind. A very elegant and romantic vision whose success can be seen in the work of that circle and in our friendship, and as you point out, in the nature of this magazine so many years later. John was the last one of that pair that called forth those circles and, in keeping with his training as a scientist, oversaw that experiment of heart and community.

Bo: For me, the interesting thing behind “Community” is to talk about the diversity in it. Not that we are all alike, but that we are a variety of people trying to live together, not a group of people who share every particular of our lives. I think Murray Edelman’s piece in this issue, about Circle Voting, speaks to this idea of putting ourselves in contact with people who don’t necessarily share our point of view about everything…and how we have all become more and more insulated from differing opinions, factionalized into only ever coming into contact with those with whom we agree. By the same token, this magazine has always tried to stay focused narrowly, and be a voice of, by and for Gay men. It’s that kind of paradox that always gets me…not either/or, but both/and.

Dan: I want to go back to Harry and John’s workshop. Without speaking too much about the particulars that experience for me was of being in a circle with fifteen other Gay men for the first time in my life (all strangers to me till that experience) and reaching the ability to share the most intimate experiences of oneself in a circle of absolute trust. Frankly I’m not sure I ever thought that kind of intimacy and trust was possible before that experience and certainly not among gay men. Beyond the basic internalized homophobia stuff, I realized I’d sucked in the “brokenness of gay people” to a point where I didn’t realize that we had the potential to heal each other and to hear each other to build a community. It was a convention shattering experience for me.

Bo: Interestingly, one of the central ideas of those workshops was withdrawing and sequestering ourselves from the “larger community” for a period so we could come back to the larger community with more clearly drawn boundaries of self, a stronger core definition. I think the real idea, and Murray talks about this in his interview, is that we are all part of many different communities…some overlapping, some that hardly come in contact and one of the central ideas of this publication was to provide a place where those differences could come together in conversation.

Dan: I especially enjoyed and appreciated Bryn Marlow’s essay in this issue about building community. The nuts and bolts experience of someone coming out and trying to figure out what it’s all about. I think most Gay men are left alone to try to figure it out for themselves with very few resources. Bryn’s piece offers that narrative. How do you navigate yourself in this strange new world and how for Darwin’s sake, HOW do you build community?

Bo: I love those first person accounts…it’s what we have always looked for here…the personal statement. And Malcolm Boyd’s “Community of Two” another one of our central ideas is that this is not meant to be the writings of experts and scholars here (though it seems we’ve gotten a reputation as “scholarly” but the shared opinions…and that out of that sharing of individual stories, a greater truth comes out. Not opinions but stories. The larger story of Community with a capital “C” out of many smaller communities. Just as we’ve always hoped that each issue might be used to stimulate those smaller groups like the one Bob started in his living room.

Dan: I think the importance of valuable symbols or metaphors for living is highly undervalued in our culture. So Marlow and Boyd’s pieces are so key to making sense of one’s life because part of that whole “making sense of oneself” has to do with finding the symbols that work in describing one’s place in the journey. So we need to drop the negative fallacious stereotypes and find those that are expansive enough to help us as we navigate through life.

Bo: Could you elaborate on what you think the positive symbols and metaphors might be?

Dan: I think we can fall into over complicating the whole thing. I’d like to think that a healthy community is one that allows you the room to explore your life, to examine why you are here and why “we” are here (a key question for Harry). In that regard the search for an examined life is a universal but Gay men start with having to get rid of a lot of excess garbage and some draconian baggage they had little to do with packing. So, for us it’s about clearing through a lot of this stuff and making sure we’re approaching our lives from a symbolic point that’s authentic and that can serve us for a long time. I think White Crane, at our brightest points, serves to be an instrument to connect people with some authentic wisdom, that is, the hard fought, “discerned” discovery about our lives. There are so few places for this in the world. And for those regarding gay life and experience precious few.

Bo: Not only clearing out the garbage, but also reconnecting with a history that has been hidden, too…I think that is actually, for me at least it was, a critical part of coming to terms with who I am, literally, “coming to terms,” finding old language, like Whitman and Carpenter, and Harry…but also one another. Certainly there are very few that are not about trying to assimilate, and become more like heterosexual people, fitting in, and spending and buying like a good little market niche I think as soon as we “buy in” to the idea that all we have is our economic power, we’re giving up a huge part of who we are as a community.

Dan: One way of looking at this metaphorically is the difference between thin and deep. That is, thin and deep culture. I know we’re small potatoes compared to the large publications that are out there targeting the “gay” community. But what we offer is a transmission of culture, a sharing of wisdom from writer to reader and from reader to writer. I’m okay if we’re “small potatoes” compared to the GLOBOGAYCORP media stuff. That’s thin competition. We are Russian blue potatoes compared with the kind of instant mashed potatoes in a box being peddled by most gay publications. It might just be a “community of 2,” of you and me in two different cities putting this together, but we’re connected to so many brothers around the world who want something richer and deeper. Who hunger for something more substantive, who know that life finds its glory in its discovery, and in our case, it’s recovery. That’s the basis of our community.

Bo lives in Brooklyn, NY a few blocks from a museum and Dan lives in Washington, DC a few blocks from a Shrine. Dan's proud to report he has a new book of poetry out from Beothuk Books. His website is at www.danvera.com

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Gay Wisdom – Today in Gay History

Born

0053 -

TRAJAN, Roman emperor, born. The first non-Italian Roman emperor. His accomplishments were both martial and civic, including construction of the aqueducts, the restoration of the Appian Way and the building of the massive Forum of Trajan. According to Spartianus, he was a proud possessor of a paedogogium, a road-show harem of boys he took along with him on campaign, apparently for his and his officers’ pleasure.

His sexuality was never in question, only the stories used to illustrate his preferences. The monumental erection, the Column of Trajan, was Rome’s highly appropriate tribute to this, emperor, considered to have been one of the “good emperors.”

1947 -

American author, poet and activist, PERRY BRASS was born today Brass grew up in Savannah, Georgia grew up in the 1950s and 60s in equal parts Southern, Jewish, economically impoverished, and very much gay. To escape the South’s violent homophobia, he hitchhiked at age 17 from Savannah to San Francisco — an adventure, he recalls, that was “like Mark Twain with drag queens.” He has published fourteen books and been a finalist six times in three categories (poetry; gay science fiction and fantasy; spirituality and religion) for national Lambda Literary Awards.

One of the main themes in his writing has been the integration of sexuality and the religious or spiritual impulse, as exemplified in his novels Albert: or, The Book of Man, Angel Lust, and Substance of God. His writings have attempted to answer questions such as: Why are so many gay men religious and political conservatives? Why is the need for God so important to us? What is our own place in nature and the world?

Among the early anthologies that included Brass's work were The Male Muse, the first anthology of openly gay poetry ever published, edited by Ian Young; The Gay Liberation Book from Rolling Stone Press, including work by John Lennon; The Penguin Book of Homosexual Verse; and Gay Roots from Gay Sunshine Press. His work can be found in over 20 anthologies of poetry, short stories, essays, memoirs, and other writings. A poetry cycle called "Five Gay Jewish Prayers" was used as part of the high holiday service at New York's Beth Simchat Torah congregation. The text of this poem was accepted (in 1985) as one of the first gay Jewish documents in the YIVO Archives of Jewish history. This poem was set to choral music by Chris De Blasio, as "Five Prayers," which has been sung by several gay choruses.

In 1984, his play Night Chills, an early play dealing with the AIDS crisis, won a Jane Chambers International Gay Playwriting Award. Brass’s collaborations with composers include the words for "All the Way Through Evening," a five-song cycle set by DeBlasio, which was featured on the AIDS Quilt Songbook CD from Harmonia Mundi, France, and Heartbeats from Minnesota Public Radio; "The Angel Voices of Men" set by Ricky Ian Gordon and commissioned by the Dick Cable Musical Trust for the New York City Gay Men’s Chorus, which has featured it on its CD Gay Century Songbook; "Three Brass Songs" with Grammy-nominated composer Fred Hersch; and "Waltzes for Men" also commissioned by the DCMT for the NYC Gay Men’s Chorus and set by Craig Carnahan.

Brass's non-fiction book, How to Survive Your Own Gay Life (Belhue Press, 1999) deals with the psychic and physical survival of gay men, with their spiritual and psychological growth, and with achieving happiness and maturity. It was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award in religion and spirituality, and has been the basis for many LGBT discussion and support groups, classes, and workshops.

Noteworthy

1996 -

The European Parliament calls for an end to "all discrimination against homosexuals."